The Italian Party

by Christina Lynch

  “What is traditore?” she asked.

  “Very bad word,” he said. “When you are not royal to your country.”

  “Loyal,” said Scottie.

  “Yes, right, loyal.”

  “Traitor. Why did she call you a traitor?”

  He blushed. “She does not like Americans,” he said. “She is crazy.”

  There was something he was not telling her. Why wouldn’t she like Americans? The U.S. had pumped endless cash into Italy since the war ended. Her country was helping to modernize life here. Make things easier for everyone.

  Scottie had a funny feeling it was the same woman who had made the rude gesture at her in the street on the day they arrived.

  “Who is she?”

  Robertino looked evasive. “The witch,” he said. It was a simple, weird, yet apt description.

  Her heart was pounding and she felt shaky as she watched the woman climb up the steep road with the donkey and disappear.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Robertino. He seemed to feel he should have protected Scottie.

  She quickly said, “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have touched her … ass.” She started to laugh. The pun was not the same in Italian, and Robertino looked confused. “Asino is ‘ass,’” she said. “Which is…” She pointed to her own. “It’s not the nice way to say it.”

  “What is the nice way?”

  She thought for a moment. “There isn’t one.”

  5.

  “Buongiorno, Americano!” called Brigante, smoking a cigar and lounging in his doorway. Michael was not in the mood to talk this morning, and tried to wave and keep going, but Brigante was quick.

  “You heard about the fire?” he said. He dropped a newspaper on Michael’s desk.

  MANGANELLI SAVES GIRL FROM FIRE IN AQUILA: TRAGEDY AVERTED. Michael picked up the paper and skimmed the story, hiding his shock and confusion. A house fire had broken out in the Aquila contrada, next door to Catholic mayoral candidate Manganelli’s home. He had rushed in and saved a little girl of six. Manganelli’s hands had been burned, but the girl was safe.

  A TRUE HERO AND MAN OF THE PEOPLE, read the sub-headline. BY RODOLFO MARCHETTI.

  “Manganelli’s front door in Via Casato di Sotto is covered in flowers,” said Brigante. “I walked by there myself this morning. Lucky bastard. He’s sure to win the election now, and what did it cost him? Nothing but a few charred fingers.”

  Michael would write a memo to Rome today, happily reversing his prediction.

  As Brigante chattered on about the latest gossip in the industrial zone (“I hear there’s a plumbing supply warehouse going in next door—you know what they say about plumbers, their pipe is in every house”), Michael couldn’t shake off the feeling, no matter how absurd it seemed, that somehow he had made this happen.

  6.

  Michael and Clare Boothe Luce celebrated Manganelli’s victory in Siena’s mayoral election with huge sirloins at the Grand Hotel Plaza, and an array of cocktails that had Michael’s head spinning.

  “Mission accomplished,” said Luce, raising her glass. “To you.”

  “There are still plenty of Communists in the city, I’m afraid,” said Michael, who feared that he would now be transferred elsewhere, possibly out of Italy altogether.

  “How’s your lovely little Vassar girl?” asked Luce, looking a little pale in pink chiffon. She snapped open a cloissoné pillbox and downed a few somethings. Michael was longing to ask her for one, but didn’t.

  “Terrific,” said Michael. “She’s dying to come to Rome, actually.” Rome would be a great post for them, he thought.

  “Oh dear, no,” said Luce. “Don’t let her come here. You’ll never get her back to Siena. In fact, I’d like to keep you there for another few months. You’re my most solid, reliable intelligence officer. You have no idea what we’re dealing with elsewhere.”

  Luce then complained to him about other intelligence officers who had “gone native.” She was furious about the reports coming out of Florence. “They sound like they were written poolside at Bernard Berenson’s villa in Settignano,” she said, “which I’m sure they were. People act as if life in Italy is one long party. I read the riot act to the entire Florence consular office. You know what I told them?”

  “What?”

  “Lay off the cocktails and sex and take your mission seriously!” She laughed and signaled to the waiter for another martini.

  Sometimes Michael felt like he was not an intelligence officer for a superpower locked in a cold war that could lead to nuclear destruction, but instead had written himself into a screwball comedy about rich people’s hijinks, like My Man Godfrey or Bringing Up Baby.

  The Italian Party.

  “Keep your eyes open,” she said as the waiter poured from a chilled silver shaker. “A Soviet invasion is not out of the question.”

  7.

  At last, he had time alone with Duncan. Today was just for the two of them, a picnic on the Palatine Hill—grilled quail wrapped in pancetta and a bottle of Frascati. Julie had left for London with the twins to attend Wimbledon. Michael had always borne an irrational dislike—really anger and jealousy—toward Julie. She had never liked Michael, and he knew it. He told himself there was no way she could suspect anything; he and Duncan had always been extremely cautious and discreet.

  Now he felt nothing but gratitude toward her.

  He had so much to tell Duncan. He filled him in on everything that he had done to get Manganelli elected, which in truth wasn’t much, but who else was around to take the credit from him? He felt a little guilty that when he boasted to Duncan about having made an “asset” in Siena, he didn’t tell him (as he hadn’t told the CIA) that Robertino was only fourteen. He said that Luce wanted to keep him on in Siena.

  “The CIA—so glamorous,” said Duncan, gnawing on a quail leg.

  “I wish you were in the Agency, too.” In truth, it was nice to be in the power position for a change, the one with the better job. Duncan was undersecretary for U.S. Information Services, whose mission was to present a good face for America overseas. USIS was in effect a large-scale public relations firm, never to be referred to as “propaganda.” Duncan’s job seemed so innocent compared to his, just to show Italians how happy Americans were, and how wonderful American products were.

  “You turned out to be a master of cloak and dagger, of course,” Duncan teased.

  “Not dagger,” Michael protested with false humility. “It was strange, though, how I cabled that thing to Luce about how Manganelli’s only chance of winning was saving a baby, and then he did save a little girl.”

  Duncan refilled his wineglass. “To fortuitous coincidences,” he said. “And to you.”

  I am the happiest I have ever been, Michael thought. Umbrella pines spread overhead, bits of columns were scattered everywhere, and everything felt leafy and green and ancient. Settled, and safe. History and the present, finally allied.

  Last night Michael had stayed over at Duncan’s apartment on Via del Babuino. This morning they had slept in, an almost unimaginable luxury, watching the sun make the shutters glow. Because even straight Italian men strolled arm in arm, Rome was a place where they could pretend that they lived in a world where their kind of love was tolerated. At home in the U.S., they had to be constantly aware of who was watching them, listening to them. Last night after dinner on the Via Veneto, they had made their way to the Pantheon, and in a shadowy niche within arm’s reach of the mortal remains of Raphael, they had kissed, the only time ever in public during the six years they had been lovers.

  “I bet Luce thinks you’re a hero,” Duncan said, leaning over the picnic basket to toss a quail bone to a stray dog.

  “That’s the Flavian Palace over there,” said Michael. “And down there is where Julius Caesar was stabbed.”

  “Oh God, not another history lesson,” said Duncan, groaning. “Please, Professor, tell me more.”

  Michael lay back and looked at the clouds, white, fluffy
and innocuous. He felt relaxed for the first time in years.

  Tonight is the beginning of always. His literature professor had written it on the board, and then explained how it was attributed to Dante, but he never said it. The man had raged about inaccuracy, equating it to treachery, but Michael had stared at the phrase and thought it didn’t matter who said it, it was beautiful.

  “You know what I would do if I were a spy?” Duncan said, uncorking another bottle of wine. “I would try to get my hands on the Communist Party membership rolls.”

  “Too dangerous,” said Michael. “What if I were caught? My cover would be blown.”

  “I’d have my asset get them,” Duncan said. “Make it look like a regular break-in. Take the cash, too.”

  “I could do that,” said Michael, thinking, How the hell would I do that?

  SIX

  OCA, THE GOOSE

  “A CALL TO ARMS”

  JUNE 24, 1956

  Scottie awakened and looked around with satisfaction. She had worked hard over the past two months to make their apartment into a home. Finally, the boxes were unpacked and pictures were on the walls and it was done. And almost without effort, from doorknob (maniglia) to coat hanger (gruccia), Scottie’s Italian had progressed fairly quickly, too, and she could now make herself understood in most situations, and follow the general lines of a conversation as long as the person didn’t speak too quickly. Robertino was a natural teacher, and she looked forward to their afternoons together. He was outgoing, peppy, always in a good mood, and perfectly confident of everything in his life.

  In contrast, Scottie felt confused. She wondered if there was something wrong with her marriage to Michael, or if this was what marriage actually was. In the movies she liked, Holiday with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, and The Awful Truth with Irene Dunne and Grant, couples teased and bantered and gave each other a hard time as a sign of affection. She and Michael were polite strangers. He did everything a good husband was supposed to do—he was kind, attentive, bought her presents, flowers, took her out to dinner, made love to her. But there was something missing. Maybe it was just that he worked so hard. He was often out late, and had to get up early. She had begun to suspect he didn’t really enjoy sex with her. Was that her fault? Should she be doing something different? Was she a nymphomaniac if she wanted it and he didn’t? Was he getting it from someone else, like the prostitute Gina down the road? These were questions she could not ask Robertino, or anyone, in any language.

  She wanted to be an excellent wife. She applied herself in the same way she had applied herself to riding—with attention to detail, research, creativity, ingenuity and passion. She had become an excellent rider, but she felt that as a wife she was still a rank beginner, suitable for leadline only.

  She was three months along. Soon she would have to tell him she was pregnant. She hoped he would be so happy that he wouldn’t suspect the truth. She felt that an engine of deception was always running inside her, a projector showing a film of how she needed things to be. She wished she could just tell him everything, apologize, throw herself on his mercy—but she feared it would ruin the fragile bond they had formed. What if he refused to love the child? In any case he would think less of her—he who was so good to her, and who worked so hard to support her. It would hurt him to think she had lied to him. He would never love her after that, and she so badly wanted him to.

  Passion. That is what’s missing, she thought. Was that even something real, something to hope for?

  She hoped having a child would bring them closer. She pictured a little boy, like Robertino, growing up confident and full of fun. Certainly Michael would like that.

  If only Leona were here. Except Leona didn’t approve of Michael, and Scottie didn’t know how to explain everything she was learning about Italy to Leona. Their letters to each other had petered out. She felt an ache of nostalgia for her days at Vassar, and yet at the same time she saw that Scottie as young and shallow.

  She moved the aqua sofa slightly to the left, then back to the right. She fluffed the throw pillows, yellow on the right, pink on the left. She stood back to assess the room.

  And then she started to cry. She sat down, telling herself it was the pregnancy, that women were especially emotional during these months. For a moment it seemed like it was okay to cry; then she got irritated with herself for even wanting to. Was she living on the street? Was she starving to death? She was bored—hardly something worth crying over. In the midst of this back-and-forth, the doorbell rang.

  “I hope I’m not disturbing.” It was Carlo Chigi Piccolomini, looking calm, cool, crisp. She wanted to hug him.

  “Not at all,” she said. “Come in.” He looked closely at her face.

  “You’ve been crying,” he said as he took his hat off, his face full of concern.

  “I—”

  “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business. The apartment looks beautiful—so different with all the furniture.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I spent about an hour deciding how to arrange those throw pillows, so please notice them. I’ll get us a drink.”

  He wandered around as she went to the kitchen to pour them lemonades.

  “Looks like your big day of shopping in New York paid off,” he called out.

  “Yes, but it was fun to buy the rest here. Siena has wonderful little shops.” She returned to the living room, but it was empty. She set the tray down.

  She found him in the bedroom, where she watched as he ran his hand over the nubbly pink chenille bedspread.

  “You don’t mind that I snoop? It’s just fun for me to see what you have done with it. I remember my grandparents’ moldy old furniture. Here was an armadio we used to hide in as children. There is where I was slapped for saying ‘va fanculo’ to the nanny when I was six.” He rubbed the fabric of the aqua and pink striped curtains between his fingers. “Lovely,” he said. “Venetian silk.”

  She glowed. No one had been here other than Michael, and he had seemed put off by all of the beautiful Italian things she’d found, as if he’d rather she just order from the Sears catalog.

  “I found the armoire around the corner,” she told Carlo. “At that little store.”

  “Yes, you have discovered that Italians do not believe in closets.”

  “It took four men to carry it up the stairs in pieces. I think they’re still cursing me.”

  “I doubt it,” he said, pausing by a stylish cylindrical table with a mirror top. She reached past him and clicked a button to reveal a hidden bar inside. He gave a whoop. “Che carino!”

  “Fully stocked, of course. Unless you like vodka. My husband won’t have it in the house.”

  “I see,” Carlo said. “No Russian liquor in an American house. What is your favorite drink?”

  “Mine? I don’t know. I like gin martinis, and Scotch, and Kentucky bourbon.”

  He nodded at her lasso from California on the wall. “You are ready to catch any stray cows that wander into Piazza del Campo.”

  “Ready at all times.”

  They returned to the living room, and he sat on the sofa, she on the chair. “It is a beautiful home,” he said.

  “Well, that’s the problem, I think,” said Scottie. “Is it a home? I mean, it looks like something from a magazine because it is from a magazine. I read a lot of them and copied the pictures. It’s like a stage set.”

  He frowned, looking around.

  “You think I’m crazy?”

  “No, I understand. It reminds me of those rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where you stand in a doorway behind a velvet rope, trying to imagine people laughing, dancing, playing cards in those silent, gloomy spaces.”

  “Yes, exactly!” She mimicked a docent, “Bedroom, from the Sagredo Palace in Venice, eighteenth century. The Croome Court Tapestry Room, Worcestershire, 1700s. Apartment of Americans in Siena, 1956.”

  He smiled. “I can see that you are tired of objects, of things.”

&
nbsp; “Yes. I am.” She stood and threw open the shutters, leaned out the window and sniffed, catching, amidst the scent of coffee, bread, fish, exhaust and garbage, a sweet and lovely familiar aroma.

  “Horses,” she said. “I can smell horses.”

  He joined her at the window. “Yes. You know that in a few days, the Palio horse race will be run here, right under your windows. You will have the best seat in the piazza.”

  “I can’t wait. Robertino, my Italian teacher, explained it all to me. He’s the groom for Porcupine.” Robertino had been talking nonstop about the race for weeks, the endless details, rules and traditions, the trivia: “In 1858, the Goose secretly switched out a bad horse for a good one in the dead of night and no one noticed,” or “There are six contrade that are still part of the Corteo Storico, the traditional parade, even though they were officially abolished in 1729 for breaking the rules. They are called the contrade soppresse.”

  “He’s hoping to be a jockey in the August Palio,” she said.

  “That will be an enormous honor for him. You know that a few nights before the Palio, you can stay up late and watch from here as every farmer and breeder with a cart horse comes to the prova di notte.”

  “Yes, Robertino told me. It’s so the horses can learn the turns, and how to run on tufa.” Tufa was the ochre-colored earth laid down over the stones. Already, young boys in medieval regalia had begun marching up and down the streets beating drums. On July 2, horses representing ten of the seventeen contrade, would run. On August 16, the other seven would run, plus three more drawn by lot. Robertino had explained you didn’t pick your contrada—you were born into it, depending on where your parents were living at the time. That meant family members were often from different contrade, leading to intra-household conflicting loyalties. No one took it lightly.

  “What contrada are you?” she asked Carlo.

  “Tower,” he said.

  “It’s all a bit hard to understand, the loyalties.”

  “That’s because it makes no sense. In Siena during the Palio, you feel more loyal to the neighborhood where you were born than to your spouse, if he is from another. It’s pazzo, crazy.”